Working in the CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, Dougherty operated in "Information Retrieval". Due to his OCD, Dougherty hoarded much of his work onto his insecure PC. This PC was hacked into by Vyacheslav Grinko's mercenaries and Kombayn Nikoladze's computer technicians from the Kalinatek building in Downtown Langley.

Data sticks and emails to and from the Kalinatek building refer to Dougherty as "little birdie", and the data leak is continually monitored for new information - this leak is referred to as peep hole.

When the NSA group Third Echelon learned of the data leak, Sam Fisher was sent to infiltrate the CIA HQ to locate and track the leak. Using the CIA computer mainframe, Fisher located the computer and after accessing the said PC for confirmation, Fisher kidnapped Dougherty during his smoke break for questioning by NSA interrogations expert John Baxter. After the questioning, they learned that his OCD was the cause of the data leak. It is unknown what happened to him afterwards. It is also unknown whether the CIA found out that Dougherty's carelessness caused the information attacks.